Discourse

Hermeneutics and the Linguistic Turn

In the 20th century, philosophy, psychology, and rhetoric traditions were marked by a return to [Page 232]hermeneutics and a corresponding linguistic turn. The questions of hermeneutics—namely, how do we read, interpret, and understand texts and ideas?—became universal questions, no longer relegated to (biblical) textual interpretation but now extensive, with ontological questions of being and being with others in the world. Centrally, Martin Heidegger's seminal work Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) poses the hermeneutic questions of how we come to understand being in an existential framework of self-interrogation or discourse. For Heidegger and his lineage, Dasein (Being) must not only interrogate itself as a part of its own identity, but it must also understand the role of external discourse with others in defining the parameters for being in the world.

This new Heideggerian mode of hermeneutic interrogation not only laid the foundation for contemporary philosophy but also provided the groundwork for explorations of discourse and identity in the disciplines of rhetoric and psychology. In psychology, the interrogatory and phenomena-oriented characteristics of Heidegger's Dasein reflect a move to understand psyche and self-consciousness in new ways. Namely, the phenomenologically disclosed psyche is defined as engaged in an experiential discourse with others and with objects in the world.

In contemporary rhetoric, the method of hermeneutics is an attempt to understand meaning in communicative acts or discourses. Emphasizing the experiential and subjective characteristics of meaning, hermeneutic rhetorical method signifies a change in understanding discourse. Meaning in discourse is no longer assumed to be simply systematic or syntactical, but now understood to be related directly to the speaker's experiences, intentions, and unique identity.

The linguistic turn in 20th-century theory represents an almost universal move in Anglo-American and Continental thought to understand discourse and language as constructive of the world, objects, ethical relations, and even identity. Discourse and language were no longer relegated to nominal functions, but were now thought to be integral to philosophical understanding. Heideggerian hermeneutics obviously had an impact on this trajectory of thought, but followers of other important theoretical traditions of the 20th century—including structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism, and critical theory—continued to explore the importance of discourse.

Structuralism: Lacan and Foucault

A method for thinking about discourse, structuralism emerged most prominently in France in the mid-20th century. At the turn of the 20th century, the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure developed an approach for understanding language primarily as a system of signs, signifiers, the signified, and the referent. By defining these linguistic relations in such a concrete system, those who employed Saussure's method could identify the structure of discourse and thereby attempt to categorize and understand the discourse in its formal production. However, it was not until after World War II, when French theorists such as Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault adopted and adapted structuralist ideas, that structuralism became popular.

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